"I'd Like People To Know"
A Winter's Day in 1957
I found his name, scanned typewritten font in an old government report. Age: 44. Occupation: Boomman. Marital Status: Married. Number of Dependents: 3.
What’s a boomman?
In bituminous coal mining, one who manipulates the controls of a loading boom (conveyor) to regulate the height of the loading end of a boom, thus controlling the flow of coal from shaking screens or picking tables into railroad cars at the tipple. Also called boom operator; loader headman.
Ref: DOT
***
It didn’t start off well, that warm day this May.
She waved me away with a grimace, every line on her face taut with dismay.
“Something wrong?” I asked, pausing mid-silly dance, halfway through a regular show at a regular place near the mountains.
“I’m a Christian. I don’t like this music.”
The rock n’ roll and country and soul had the rest of the room bobbing along, but this lady from West Virginia felt out of place.
I feel out of place, too. It happens more and more. They call me Sir often. Since when did they lower the working age? Everyone is 12 at the grocery store. The classic rock station is playing my high school music. But some folks consider the Beatles a new thing, and I can see why. It’s a matter of perspective.
Time is strange.
So I promised and delivered on a hymn for little Mrs. Williamson, and threw in John Denver’s Country Roads.
“My folks met in West Virginia” I told her the first time, a slender bridge over a chasm of suspicion. It helped.
Now every time I play at her place, she waves at me. “I’m from Beckley, West Virginia.” John Denver always makes an appearance.
***
She waved me over yesterday, a hot day in July. Uh oh. No cause for concern. She had a story about a cold day in February long ago.
“West Virginia is a coal mining state.”
“Yes indeed” I said, pulling up a chair.
“My husband was killed in the mines.”
There we sat, surrounded by the lunchtime bustle and chatter about the weather, light years away from that day in 1957 that widowed her.
“I had two boys. The oldest was six. They kept him back in school, because for that last week of first grade, he just sat there, staring at the wall. My brother in law was there on that day, but survived. He went east, looking for a job, but couldn’t find one. He came back to the mines a few months later. He was killed in the next accident.”
A staffer walked by, putting packs of mayonnaise and mustard on the table. Mrs. Williamson continued.
“I got remarried. Now I’m a Williamson.” Her boys grew up. The youngest still lives near the mines. The eldest moved. Far, far to the east, away from those silent hills and and first grade classrooms and walls that stare back. He’s got a talent for building houses.
“Their daddy would be real pleased at how they turned out” she said, with a slight nod of pride.
She told me more, but not much more. The sensationalized descriptions of men and rock and smoke and entombing darkness live in my thesaurus, comfortable on an airy shelf where there’s unlimited hours of oxygen. The truth lives in the lines on her face.
She did say one more thing, though.
“I’d like people to know.”
